Nadia Mulhall
To hold
When the stay-at-home-order began, I started working at the Antioch Farm, caring for the chickens, ducks, and geese. I was surprised at the size of the goose eggs and their delicate, lightly textured surface. Each egg is perfect and unique, a slightly different size and shape. I brought one home and my mother showed me how to blow out the egg by making two small holes on either side. Eggs are rich in symbolism, they are vessels for transformation, signs of spring and life. There are myths about the earth being born out of an egg. With the hollow egg in my hand I thought of the texture of grass in early spring and laying in a field with friends in the first warm sun. I thought of my childhood bedroom window, and of the fabric of a coat I wore as a teenager. These small details that make up memories often become bigger than the memories themselves. The right now that has stretched into months is an edge, a moment of ending and beginning. In my time at home in Yellow Springs the past few months, painting eggs has become a way to capture both this moment and my memories of this place which holds almost all of my life so far.
